Say it with buses

Sokari Douglas Camp building her bus sculpture memorial to Ken Saro-Wiwa in her studio in Southwark, London. Photograph: Dan Chung

"They were way ahead of their time," says Dan Gretton, director of Platform, an organisation that uses the arts to highlight oil industry abuses worldwide. "You could regard them as some of the first martyrs of the fossil fuel age." Chief among these "first martyrs" was Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian journalist and novelist who spearheaded a massive campaign against oil corporations and the Nigerian government, accusing both of waging an ecological war against the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta.

In 1994, Saro-Wiwa was arrested and accused of incitement to murder. Eighteen months later, following a show trial condemned by human rights organisations, he and eight other leaders of the Movement For the Survival of the Ogoni People were executed by hanging, an act that propelled the story on to the front pages of newspapers worldwide.

Last year, to mark the 10th anniversary of Saro-Wiwa's execution, Platform, together with Amnesty International, the Arts Council and Greenpeace, launched a competition, asking artists to come up with proposals for a Saro-Wiwa memorial. The winner was Nigerian-born sculptor Sokari Douglas Camp, whose "mobile memorial" takes the form of a giant bus, made out of steel and loaded with oil barrels. From tomorrow, it will be parked outside the Guardian's offices in London, before embarking on a UK tour taking in Bristol, Hull, Liverpool and Birmingham - areas chosen in part because of their historical links with the slave trade. "These issues of colonialism are not things from 200 years ago - they still have massive consequences," says Gretton.

Gretton says the idea of a travelling memorial was conceived as an antidote to the colonial notion of fixed, figurative monuments. Britain's public spaces, he says, are dominated by conventional statues celebrating the military, the empire and the aristocracy. The memorial is also large enough to serve as a miniature venue for film screenings and exhibitions. Platform is hoping its two-year journey around the country will kickstart debates on issues from climate change to social justice.

Why choose a bus to commemorate an environmental campaigner? "They didn't want a sculpture of Ken, they wanted a wider message," says Camp, who spent two months constructing the memorial in her London studio. The bus is not motorised, and will be transported by a haulage company. It is so big the organisers had to remove part of a wall to get it out. For Camp, the image of a rickety vehicle has many resonances - as a pollutant, a carrier of supplies and information, and as a metaphor for Saro-Wiwa's activism.

"I think transport is an important feature in environmental debate," she says. "The poorer world is always trying to catch up with the west in transporting goods. I wanted a spectacle of some kind, one of those vehicles, stacked precariously with all the goods they can carry. It will be fantastic to see it in a London street."

Camp has strong personal memories of Saro-Wiwa's campaign against the oil companies and its tragic conclusion. "We watched it all fall apart on TV with the rest of the world," she says. "I want people to know just how bad things are in the Delta, and if this structure can educate people that western society uses some areas of the world as dustbins, I think it will help" · The memorial will be unveiled tomorrow and will stay until November 24. The Guardian's Newsroom is also hosting a film and discussion programme to mark the unveiling.

About this article

A 'living memorial' to human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa is about to tour Britain

This article appeared on p26 of the G2 section of the Guardian
on Wednesday 8 November 2006.
It was published on
the Guardian website
at 09.57 EST on Thursday 9 November 2006.
It was last modified at 09.57 EST on Friday 10 November 2006.
It was first published at 09.57 EST on Friday 10 November 2006.